1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process and a device for producing hydrogen gas from water and carbon.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a constant quest for new sources of energy that are ecologically clean and economical to produce. Since carbon and water are two of the most abundant substances on earth it would be highly appreciated if one could directly combine them in a very efficient process in order to produce pure hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide gas.
Prior to the turn of the century many cities in the United States of America and in Europe produced a form of illuminating gas called water gas which was generated during the day, stored in large floating storage tanks and burned at night in the gas street light system of the city. The water gas generators used simple principals of operation that can be found in many books relating to technical processes. Basically the apparatus used for producing said gas was a closed retort chamber that incorporated a bed of air blown incandescent coke. The air was turned off and the bed of white-hot coke was blown with live steam. Since the threshold of dissociation vapour state water is around 1100° C. the water partially split allowing the oxygen to combine with the carbon to form carbon monoxide leaving the hydrogen gas in the free state. Hydrogen and carbon-monoxide are both combustibles when mixed with air so after a scrubbing state to remove ash a form of illuminating gas was produced and stored for later use.
A person skilled in the art will agree that the above process for producing the illuminating gas is endothermic by the fact that the bed of coke can only be blown with live steam for a short period of time during which the white-hot coke is cooled. At this point air has to be re-admitted to bring the coke back to an incandescent state to provide the threshold dissociation temperatures needed.